u/BruinBound22

Ive been playing since 2016 and always felt like 3s was what I think of when I think RL. However, it's clear in the last two years as I watch more streamers that 2s is really thought of as the primary mode for high level players. Was it always like this and I was just oblivious? Considering 3s is the main esports mode, why aren't more people focused on grinding 3s?

TL;DR:

Soft-drifting does not charge your boost any faster, it is entirely dependent on how far on the horizontals you move your stick. Up and down, to achieve max stick input range, have no effect. You should aim to maximize the time that your stick is pressed fully inwards on a drift.

Intro:

I asked earlier today about whether anyone did any experiments before on soft-drifting, and thanks to those who replied. Basically there are some videos of people encouraging it, but nothing scientific was done. So I spent a bit of time doing that and the following data-analysis.

What is soft-drifting?

The idea is that rather than having to move your stick all the way to the inside of the direction you are drifting to charge your mini-turbos, you could hold it halfway or most of the way in, but also upwards. The theory is that holding it upwards and making sure your stick is at a full input will charge the mini-turbo faster or as fast as fully inwards. My results do not support this!

Test 1: How long does it take to charge super mini-turbos with varying stick inputs?

For this test, I found an open road area, and I simply started a left drift. I then compared four different methods of where I am holding the stick and had my experiment associate (aka my wife) use a stop-watch on when the drift started, and when the orange mini-turbo charged. We did 10 tests for each method.

https://preview.redd.it/07rudxjp3d3h1.png?width=925&format=png&auto=webp&s=ef5191d97881c78f24b2e03b6f14ec4f1e8fdb13

There are two findings that immediately shake things up:

1. The 45* soft-drift does not seem faster than just holding the stick on the horizontal to roughly the same placement
2. The mini-turbo charge times are NOT linear. A full-outside stick position is a bit slower than both of the slightly inside methods, but a full inside drift cuts the time more than in half!

This already starts to suggest that maximizing the time you do a full-inward cut is far more important that trying to hold a steady drift with a consistent stick input.

Test 2: How long does it take to charge an ultra mini-turbo?

On the previous test I noticed its very hard to accurately recreate what level of horizontal I am doing for the 45 degree and the half-inside method. So to control for that and run a better test, I started drifting along a set circle in the road under DK Spaceport. I felt this would force me to take the same drift angle and make the same corrections. The methods were adjusted to:

• Soft-drift: My stick is always fully to the top, and the horizontals are adjusted to keep my kart drifting around the marked circle.
• Flat: I only make the adjustments to drift along the marked circle, but I never move my stick up or down.
• Full-in - Full-Out: I stay along the marked circle, but I alternate as much as possible to the extremes, making my kart go a bit wide then cut inwards sharply. I am still drifting along the same path, but I am alternating quickly between extremes to maximize the time I am fully inward on the drift, which the first test suggested would be better.

https://preview.redd.it/3jryxjk85d3h1.png?width=867&format=png&auto=webp&s=287553dfdb4524c31f709f94d35b955cf39177ad

The full-in - full-out method was a significant improvement, while the soft-drift and flat methods were basically the same outside of some testing and data-collection volatility. At this point, its very clear that the upwards and downwards stick positions do nothing to charge boost faster, and it is entirely based on the time the stick is in varying positions, with the full inside position being critical.

Test 3: How long does it take to do the large circle?

I did this test because I felt it may be possible that your boost charges faster with the full-in - full-out method, but you end up drifting slower in terms of distance achieved. Its possible that charging your mini-turbo super fast may cause you to "cut" too much on the drift, and overall makes you much slower.

https://preview.redd.it/0n9pk8at6d3h1.png?width=634&format=png&auto=webp&s=6f821a60146cb48bf72abf503054ed9e2667ee57

It was not the case, the speed around the circle was basically the same between soft-drifting and doing a steady circle, compared to maximizing the extremes with the full-in - full-out method.

So what does this mean?

• Soft-drifting does nothing for MKW:
  • If you found yourself holding upwards as much as possible, it was not charging your boosts faster.
  • I speculate that it seemed to work for people because it caused them to sharply adjust, which meant bouncing between the left/right extremes more, and charge faster. So the method might have helped, but not for the reasons everyone suspected.
  • I unfortunately do not have MK8 to test if this was ever a real method. I suspect it was, but they changed that for MKW.
• Try to maximize the time you can do a sharp cut when drifting, this drastically improves how fast many turbos charge.
  • The method I am proposing is very similar to MK64, where you would have to alternate between fully-in and fully-out to charge each level of boost. Basically, try to cut inwards fully, when the angle becomes too steep, quickly push-out fully to get back aligned, then cut back in as much as possible. The speed loss is negligible, but the boost charge improvement is massive.
    • I do suspect that people who are soft-drifting and very good at the game are actually almost fully inwards anyways, and they didn't realize it...
  • I also suspect the boost charging mechanics were designed this way in MKW as a bit of a throwback to MK64, just no one realized it and were used to soft-drifting being the law.
    • It is still a bit different, you don't need to go outside at all, a fully inside stick while drifting will charge as fast as possible. But realistically not many corners call for this.
• Why did I find it? The last MK I played was MK64, so I was already used to this method! When I began soft-drifting because Youtube told me to, I immediately felt like it wasn't helping and have been suspicious. I finally put it to the test after seeing no convincing experiments have been ran.

Anyways, hope this helps. If you feel I got something wrong, let me know. But I would encourage you to test yourself! Pay attention to where your stick actually is, and if you removed the y-axis, does it actually change? Now try to just sit in the extremes as much as possible, does it seem better? Hope it feels like an improvement!

-Not Zubat

I just did some (very rudimentary and likely imprecise) experiments and I am not noticing any difference at how long it takes to charge the different turbos while just sliding without any inputs, and sliding with an input always on the edge of the stick. The only thing that seems to matter is how much you "cut" inside on your drift.

Has this been studied and proven? Every shortcut video talks about it but I'm feeling like any advantage must be negligible.

It seems you can't get demoted out of a tier, only the divisions within the tier. So Ive been using it as a perfect chance to try out all the teams and Pokemon, just to get a better sense of their strengths and weaknesses, moves, speed, etc.

I've only had the game for a few days but it seems like a great way to accelerate learning overall. I definitely don't want to just go all in on one team and that's all I know, feel like building up the knowledge base is more critical first.